The Freedom Tower (World Trade Center #1) and the 9/11 Memorial

Off to NYC today!  But before I get into that, I have 3 more "going through NYC" pictures.  Mimi and Otto's daughter, Eve, lives here and took some pictures of us going through NYC.  Luke's family came from Belgium about 65 years ago, via ship, and landing in NYC.  Here is Latitudes in front of Ellis Island, the gateway for many immigrants, before Luke's time.

We sometimes fool ourselves into believing that Latitudes is kinda big.  She isn't - especially compared to one of the Staten Island ferries!

And Latitudes and Best of Times going under the Brooklyn Bridge.

New York!  First, you take the dinghy to shore.  Then you walk the 25 minutes uphill (not kidding...) to the train station.  THEN you get on the train and head out of town for the 40 minute commute!

We're here!  One direction to the Freedom Tower, the other to the 9/11 Memorial.

And finally, The Freedom Tower.

There were 3 things I REALLY liked about the tower - one was the 101 story fastest ever elevator ride to the 102nd Observation Tower floor (60 seconds), the second was the 101 story fastest ever elevator ride down to the 1st floor, and the third was, of course, the view.  Videos were shown on the elevator rides - a geographical history of NYC on the way up, and the ride down was a video of the view you would have if the elevator was glass.  The view from the Observation Tower, all 360 degrees of it, was spectacular.  You really appreciate how densely populated and crowded the city is.

Look carefully and you can see Latitude's route into the city.  At the upper center-right-ish, you can spot the Verrazano Bridge that we sailed under.  To the far right, just out of sight is the Statue of Liberty.  Past there, past the big ships, and a curve to the left, and we're outside of Manhattan, starting up the East River.

Here are 2 of the bridges we sailed under.

The 9/11 South Tower Memorial from the Observation Tower. The two memorial pools are set within the footprints of the two towers.  Actually, the towers were a little larger than the pools.  Both pools and the associated grounds are the "roof" of the 100,000 sq ft 9/11 museum, 7 stories under ground. The odd shaped white building is the entry to the museum.  We couldn't get tickets to the museum - sold out until July 19...
Here is a nice link 

http://www.wtc.com/memorial

Heat/air conditioning duct work surrounds the windows.  I guess to keep folks from sitting or standing on them, they are all covered with little skylines. 

A hot dog for Luke and we were ready to go out into the just beginning rain to see the 911 Memorial.

I couldn't get an entire pool in one picture.  This one shows the inner infinity pool and the 30 ft high waterfall along the side.

This picture shows the names of the almost 3000 people who died that day.  In all of that horror, an amazing 15,000 people escaped the twin towers and survived the attack.  If it had not been for several twists of fate, the number would have been much higher - a big baseball game had been held the night before and lots of folks had taken the day off, it was the first day of school and parents were late because they were getting kids to school, etc.

A volunteer group places a white rose on each name on their birthday.  We didn't get a picture of that.

From the Memorial, you can also see the new Oculus Building - actually an ultra modern train station. 

$2 billion over budget now, it is not quite finished.

And did it ever rain.

To escape the rain after our Memorial tour, we ducked inside the newly renovated Brookfield Place.  You can't really call it a "mall" because they also have events, but they certainly have some high-end shops!  Plus a grocery shop that would put any gourmet grocer to shame.  Beautiful veggies?  I don't think I've ever paid $7/pound for tomatoes.  Or $190/lb for pork...A view of the Hudson River and palm trees from Miami complete the opulence.  A link https://brookfieldplaceny.com/

And who do ya call outside of the mall? Ghost busters!

NYC is wonderful - walked from the mall to the subway and to Penn Station entirely underground and dry.  The rain was just letting up when we arrived so we did a quick street view of the city before catching the Long Island Rail Road back to Port Washington.

It was sunny by the time we got off the train.  Timed it perfectly to miss the rain and the upcoming "big blow" to get back to Latitudes.  The big blow did indeed start just as we got back.  It has blown ever since about 5 and looks like it will continue through tomorrow.  Right now the wind is howling at a sustained 22 knots with gusts over 25.  We are rocking and rolling.  But we are on a good mooring ball so we don't have to be concerned about our anchor dragging.  AND!  our engine part came in so Guido will be by around 9 tomorrow morning to do the repair.  If the winds subside, we possibly continue our trip on Friday.